Aunts Aren't What?

The quarterly journal of The Wodehouse Society Volume 27 Number 3 Autumn 2006 Aunts Aren’t What? BY CHARLES GOULD ecently, cataloguing a collection of Wodehouse novels in translation, I was struck again by R the strangeness of the title Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen and by the sad history that seems to dog this title and its illustrators, who in my experience always include a cat. Wodehouse’s original title is derived from the dialogue between Jeeves and Bertie at the very end of the novel, in which Bertie’s idea that “the trouble with aunts as a class” is “that they are not gentlemen.” In context, this is very funny and certainly needs no explication. We are well accustomed to the “ungentlemanly” behavior of Aunt Agatha—autocratic, tyrannical, unreasoning, and unfair—though in this instance it’s the good and deserving Aunt Dahlia whose “moral code is lax.” But exalted to the level of a title and thus isolated, the statement A sensible Teutonic “aunts aren’t gentlemen” provokes some scrutiny. translation First, it involves a terrible pun—or at least homonymic wordplay—lost immediately on such lost American souls as pronounce “aunt” “ant” and “aren’t” “arunt.” That “aunt” and “aren’t” are homonyms is something of a stretch in English anyway, and to stretch it into a translation is hopeless. True, in “The Aunt and the Sluggard” (My Man Jeeves), Wodehouse wants us to pronounce “aunt” “ant” so that the title will remind us of the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper; but “ants aren’t gentlemen” hasn’t a whisper of wit or euphony to recommend it to the ear. Nor, out of the context of that concluding dialogue, has it much appeal to the understanding, for it makes the wholly baseless (or fruitless, or bootless) assumption that even American readers will not take “gentlemen” literally. Even then, even in English in England, the title makes but little sense. You have to read through to the last line of the novel to get it entirely. Illiterate in every language cited here if not in my own, I can’t imagine what it means in Danish or Norwegian (Tanter er ikke gentlemen) or Dutch (Tantes zijn geen heren)—unless, as I have elsewhere suggested, it hints at one of those sex-change operations which it shall ever be my study not to know about or deserve. Like the Italian (Le zie non sono gentiluomini ) and the Swedish (Fastrar är inga gentlemän), these literal translations must be mystifying in a culture where “gentleman” does not have the immediate, automatic metaphorical connotation of “straight shooter” or “one who plays cricket.” Why—how—would an aunt be a gentleman? The question reminds me of Gussie Fink- Nottle and Catsmeat Pirbright in their Pat and Mike knockabout cross-talk act in Chapter 22 of The Mating Season: “Who was that lady I saw you with?” “That was no lady, that was my wife.” Similarly, in Bertie’s words, “an amusing little misunderstanding, you would say,” thinking that an aunt was a gentleman. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Teutonic translator—Christian Thiermann—avoids all this “incoherent raving,” as Gussie would call it, by the simple expedient of not attempting to translate the title at all. The German title—Fünf vor zwölf, Jeeves! (Five before Twelve, Jeeves!)—is perhaps as Lancaster came in at his worst . which is not bad; sensible as the others, since it, too, doesn’t mean a thing but Jeeves wouldn’t have let Bertie leave even a cottage . unless you notice, on the front-cover illustration in that green checked tweed suit, green (green?) hat, of the German first edition, the time on the stable and orange shoes! Then Simon & Schuster brought clock (11:55), which marks Bertie’s encounter with in Norman Greene to produce probably the worst Pop Cook at Eggesford Court, while he is expected for Wodehouse dust-wrapper illustration in history: Bertie lunch with the Briscoes at Eggesford Hall, though the Wooster looks like a middle-aged Kennebunkport Briscoe binge is actually slated for 1:30. This illustration Realtor (or retired Schoolmaster) awaiting his third is clearly derived from Osbert Lancaster’s dust wrapper martini—which in fact Jeeves has in his hand, not on for the Barrie & Jenkins edition (used also on the a tray, looking like Alistair Cooke after a bad date with Danish edition), in which the time on the stable clock Tallulah Bankhead. Not a pretty sight. But behind it all is 5 minutes past 12; but I think we will all agree that is a cat. Fünf nach zwölf hasn’t nearly the dramatic suspense David Jasen once told me that Wodehouse routinely of the present title, while Eggesford Mittags would be threw dust wrappers away when he received copies of the merest shilly-shallying. (Chapter Nine begins at his books. Sad news for some collectors, but in this case 5 minutes to 3—fünf Minuten vor drei—but that is who’d blame him? Some of the paperback covers I’ve completely irrelevant to this discussion.) My point is mentioned would have—may have, if he saw them— that by this Teutonic titular criterion, Melville might as puzzled him as much as they do me. I used to tell my well have entitled his masterwork Eight Bells, while we classes that if they couldn’t judge a book by its cover would know The Sun Also Rises as About 6 A.M., E.S.T. they’d waste a lot of time on a physics text that could I believe there is a work entitled High Noon, but—for have been a Dickens novel. James Thurber (“What’s obvious reasons—I don’t know what it’s about. Just So Funny?” in Thurber Country, New York: Simon & imagine the bibliography if Herr Thiermann were to Schuster, 1962) offered as his first standing rule about re-entitle Wodehouse’s entire output after this fashion! humor: “The reader should be able to find out what the There’d hardly be enough hours in the day. story is about.” I feel this rule should apply to titleists, American translator Peter Schwed similarly avoided translators, and cover illustrators. When Agatha Christie the difficulties attendant upon the literal by changing offers us 4:50 from Paddington, we know where we are the title to The Cat-nappers, making another—if and when, and—from Dame Agatha—we know what possible, worse—pun too tedious to explain . though to expect. Five to Twelve at Eggesford Court doesn’t do it admittedly, Bertie is sleepy at the beginning of Chapter for Sir Pelham. Six, and the plot turns on Aunt Dahlia’s assigning him the task of kidnapping the cat on whom the well- © Charles E. Gould, Jr. 2006 being of the race horse she has bet against depends. (Somewhere in this little zoo there should be a kid- goat.) Peter Schwed was a revered friend, but some of his PGW titles are embarrassing. Just think where we’d be if the Danish and the Deutsch and the Dutch had started with this one. We’d have Katzendämmerung, or Das Schläfchen um zwölf Uhr, and then it would come back into English as The Late-night Litter Lifters. I do not have in hand all of the titles I’ve mentioned, relying on Ms. McIlvaine for the Italian and Swedish, and I mention only the artwork I have actually seen Tour of Wodehouse’s England for this title, sparing us all what I would heretically say about the Ionicus illustration if it were here. Trying to ord has just been received that the P G illustrate (as often is true) the title without reading the WWodehouse Society (UK) has set dates— novel, these artists agree there’s a cat in it. The Dutch specifically, July 8–15, 2007—for its next Tour of first edition—preceding, alas, the advent of Peter van Wodehouse’s England to celebrate the Society’s 10th Straaten—presents a sole photographic image of Jeeves anniversary. Full details of the tour and its costs will with an umbrella on his left arm and a cat on a leash be published in the winter issue of Plum Lines. Until in his right hand: as an illustration of anything in the that time, if you may be interested in signing up book it’s as baffling as the title. In England, Osbert for it, email the Society’s chairman, Hilary Bruce. 2 Plum Lines Vol. 27 No. 3 Autumn 2006 Providence Convention 2007! Notice for Visitors to re you moaning that it’s been far too long since A we last had a convention? Do you get an itchy, Dulwich College can’t-wait sensation whenever thoughts of stimulating talks, scintillating skits, and sensational browsing and lease raise your glasses in sluicing come to mind? Alas, immediate relief is not Pa toast to Dr. Jan Piggott, in store, because the next who recently retired as convention is still more than Dulwich College’s archivist. a year away. It’s not too soon, We Wodehousians have always though, to start planning been fortunate in having an now for what promises to able and dedicated individual be a heavenly time (that’s a administering the Wodehouse clue) in Providence, Rhode papers at the archive, and we all Island. So if you haven’t appreciate the wonderful job Jan did during his years already done so, get out your in the post. The Wodehouse collection will now be calendar and reserve the date: overseen by Mrs.

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